


Infinity

by isthisenoughorcanwegohigher



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Welters Challenge 2019, alternate title: sera and john can eat my farts, the first chapter is for the welters challenge 2019, the rest of the story is me desperately wanting a fix-it fic because quentin CANNOT BE DEAD, the welters 2019, welters 2019 theme 1: the library
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 09:32:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18601798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isthisenoughorcanwegohigher/pseuds/isthisenoughorcanwegohigher
Summary: Quentin doesn’t accept his friends throwing things into a fire and singing a cover of A-Ha as a sign that they’re going to be okay, because he knows them better than that. He refuses to just not know exactly what happens to Julia, his best friend for as long as he can remember, Alice, the girl he fell in love with, and Eliot, his soulmate. To keep an eye on them and try to find a way to help them, he joins the Underworld branch of the Library, much to Penny 40’s dismay.





	Infinity

**Author's Note:**

> _How many nights have you wished someone would stay?_   
>  _Lay awake only hoping they're okay_   
>  _I never counted all of mine_   
>  _If I tried, I know it would feel like infinity_

The last thing Quentin remembered clearly was the shower of sparks that had begun cascading from the mirror as the spell finished sealing it. And if he closed his eyes, he remembered the way those sparks reflected in Alice’s glasses, as if the mending spell hadn’t actually fixed anything but rather exchanged the cracked mirror for an already intact reflection of sight. As if Alice, understanding what he was doing, was looking at him, her eyes a window to her own shattered soul.

It was for this reason, among others, that when Penny--his Penny, the Penny he’d really known at Brakebills, the Penny that had slammed him against a tree because he’d been singing Taylor Swift in his head--showed him the people he’d left behind, gathered around a bonfire and singing Take On Me, that he knew something was off.

Penny was saying that they would be alright, he was explaining that they would be okay without Quentin, that the impact Quentin had had on them would be enough to carry them through and help them move on.

But what Quentin was seeing had to be a trick. He knew these people. He cared about these people. He  _ loved _ these people. This wasn’t just off. It was weird. It was  _ wrong _ .

Julia wouldn’t cry, not like this. Julia, his best friend, the girl he’d spent years playing Fillory with, the girl who’d spent hours hiding under a table with him, through all their highs and lows, she wouldn’t cry, and she wouldn’t burn a deck of playing cards. She’d be furious, spitfire and fists and sharp words. She would tear every world that stood in her way apart before she accepted that there was nothing that could be done to bring him back. Magic or not, she would find a way.

Alice wouldn’t throw a mug into the fire. She would be angry, too. Not like Julia, who was all fire. No, Alice had a cold fury, a calculated fury that burned as bright as any star. This was Alice, fearless Alice who had fought from the beginning just to find a family in this world, who had had everyone betray her and turn their backs on her and had still come back, the same Alice who had let her magic burn through her just to save Quentin from Martin Chatwin. She would not sit idly by and accept his death, she would burn down anyone who stood in her way, who thought they could stop her from saving her family.

And Eliot--his soulmate, the person Quentin had spent a lifetime with and the person he’d wanted to devote the rest of his life to--Eliot wouldn’t throw a peach into a fire and be okay. Eliot had fought back against a god in his head just to let Quentin know he was okay. Just to let Quentin know that he wanted a second chance. To let Quentin know that he loved him, and that this wouldn’t be the end of their story. Eliot wouldn’t accept this being the end of their story. Eliot would endure a hundred possessions over if it meant that he could save Quentin.

No, this wasn’t right.

Penny was still talking, explaining the future of his friends, how Alice would go on to head the Library, how Margo and Eliot would return to Fillory three hundred years in the future.

“This is wrong,” Quentin interrupted, finally moving his gaze from the wall to Penny.

“And Kady--I--what?” Penny, who had seemed so self-assured moments before, now looked like a deer in the headlights. Whatever he’d been expecting Quentin to say in response to all of this, it hadn’t been that.

“This is wrong,” Quentin repeated, standing up and moving behind the chair he’d been sitting in to grasp the back of it, his knuckles whitening as he gripped it in agitation. “They wouldn’t just be okay with this, not that fast, not that way. They’re our friends, Penny, I thought you knew them better than that.”

“I do know them better than that,” Penny said what was supposed to be a placating tone, also standing, holding his hands out, palms forward, trying to calm Quentin. “I’ve read their books. I know what happens.”

Quentin scoffed. “I don’t believe you.”

“Quentin--”

“For fuck’s sake, Penny, you’re a mind reader!” Quentin yelled, throwing his hands out towards Penny. “You can literally tell what someone is thinking, and you’re telling me that...that...whatever the fuck that bonfire was...you’re going to tell me that that’s what really happens with our friends? That just like that,” Quentin snapped his fingers, “they’ll be okay? Toss a book into a fire and everything is fine? Fuck that. Tell me the truth.”

“That is the truth, Quentin,” Penny said, his voice finally taking on an edge of familiar annoyance. 

“No.” Quentin shook his head. “That’s the truth you want me to see, so I move on or whatever, right? Instead of trying to find a way back? Instead of trying to find a way to help?”

Penny didn’t respond, though his face was answer enough. The furrowed brow, the frown, and the way his gaze kept darting to the door.

There was a beat of silence in which Penny tried desperately to think of an answer that would get Quentin to calm down and move on and in which Quentin came to a decision that, if he weren’t already dead, he knew his friends would probably kill him for.

“I want to join the Library.”

“What?” There was a stronger hint of the Penny Quentin knew in this exclamation.

“I want to join the Library. Work for the Order,” Quentin said, his face set in lines of determination.

“It...it doesn’t work like that, Quentin, you can’t just join the Order after you’re dead, you have to join when you’re alive, pledge your service even in death.” Penny was staring at Quentin, expression hard.

“It doesn’t  _ not _ work like that,” Quentin countered, narrowing his eyes. “I want to join.”

“No,” Penny said. Having regained his mask of composure, the only sign that he was bothered by this a flicker of light in his eyes that Quentin might not have caught if he hadn’t known Penny.

“Then let me out so I can find someone who’ll say yes.”

“Absolutely not. No.”

“Damn it, Penny, tell me how to join or let me go find someone else to help me,” Quentin snapped.

Penny sighed and ran a hand over his face. “You’re serious about this?”

“Deadly,” Quentin said. “Pun intended,” he added after a short pause.

Penny fought back a smile. “Fine. Let me go find my supervisor. She’ll be able to help.”

Quentin let out a breath and visibly shrank with relief. “Okay.”

Penny exited the room, leaving Quentin alone with his jumbled thoughts.

Quentin sank into the chair he’d vacated and sighed, running a hand through his hair. This was an absolutely insane plan. There was no way it would work. 

God, what the fuck was he thinking? Joining the Library? The very same organization that had stolen months of his life, of his friends lives? The same people who had locked him inside his own head, made him into a different person--an English professor, of all things--and left his mother alone, upset and furious, when his father had died? How he could possibly think that joining them would end well, he wasn’t sure. But if his only other option was to believe in what Penny had shown him when he knew better, and to move on, then this was the choice he was going to make, no matter how it ended.

A strangled laugh found its way out of his throat. No matter how it ended. But he was dead now. It would never really end, not again, because it already  _ had _ ended. There was no way back.

This thought made his heart ache as the realization that he was dead really began to sink in. He was moving past the confusion and the hurt and the fear, he was beginning to understand, and it was terrifying on a level he hadn’t thought possible, especially with his heart racing like it was. His heart couldn’t be racing like this, making his chest hurt like this--he was dead.

As his thoughts spiralled further down the path of realization, the door opened again. Penny walked in, followed by a woman in a stiff suit.

She strode over to the desk. Penny hovered just behind her.

She sat at the desk and spread her hands out in front of her, fingers interlocked.

“I understand that you wish to join the Underworld branch of the Library, Mr. Coldwater,” the woman said, staring at Quentin over the rim of her glasses.

Quentin flinched slightly at her cool tone. “Er--yes,” he responded. He hesitated for a moment before standing and moving closer to the desk. “I just...I know the people I left behind, my friends? And I know that no matter what their books say, that it’s going to take some time for them to be okay, and they have a knack for finding trouble, which you probably already knew, and I just want to be able to have a way to help them? And I don’t-I’m not ready to move on yet, not until I really see that they’re going to be okay.”

In the silence that followed, Quentin felt his confidence shrinking and cursed himself for believing he had a shot at this. There was no way this would work, they were going to make him move on, and his friends would be left to suffer through life without help, they wouldn’t….

“Very well, then, Mr. Coldwater.” The woman stood, still staring down at Quentin. “Please wait here with Mr. Adiyodi, and I will return shortly with the paperwork. Welcome to the Order of the Neitherlands.”


End file.
